The Post-Giancana Chicago Outfit & the Rise of Joey Aiuppa 

Yeh because u know everything.....😅 clown

Canada is still there?

Paul Whitcombe??

No idea how Philadelphia is more compelling than the freaking Outfit

Yea, JCosenza they need a "Court Buff" like yourself to give them your twisted exaggerated opinions of your guesses about the Chicago Outift. LOL

Al Pilotto was President of LIUNA Local 5 while Vince Solano was President of LIUNA Local 1. And of course there is much much more to the story of Chicago mob control and influence in organized labor, which went back to men like Diamond Joe Esposito, Tony D’Andrea, and Colosimo. A major subject that would require perhaps multiple episodes to really tackle.

@@Oneleven1 thanks for the info Tony and Happy Easter to you and yours!

@@Reils223 Happy Easter to you and yours as well, brother.

@@Oneleven1 I’m really looking forward to the 90s episode of the outfit. There’s a great picture of Ferriola, Carlisi, Infelise and Marcello having a meeting outside of a supermarket in the parking lot.

@@Reils223 that was the Venture store in Addison

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Your grandmother was a cousin then of Angelina Dolores Zito, Aiuppa’s wife? The Zitos’ hometown of Trivigno, Potenza, Basilicata was very important in the development of the Italian community in Melrose Park (as well as in the old Polk/Clark Italian colony in the South Loop). The DeGrazias and Stasis, who were important in the mob in Melrose Park back in the day, were also Trivignesi.

Your grandma was Joe Aiuppa.......um ......ok.....

Re-read the sentence pal….

@@frankzito1494 says quote "Joey Aiuppa is my grandmother,"....... And again.....lol

Go to Chicago gangland blog. There is a bunch of full stories on the chop shop wars. Billy Dauber. The Accardo robbery and the aftermath.

Off the cuff. Chicago mafia. Type that in

The boys in chicago heights Mathew j luzi

We use “LCN” a lot in conversation as this is the convention used by the FBI. In Italian the feminine article “la” is used for certain grammatical constructions but not others. In English usage in the US, the term “cosa nostra” is used without the article. In a number of Families in the US, including but not limited to Chicago, “cosa nostra” never really took hold as a reference for the mafia. CIs in Chicago and some other cities instead used terms like “the mafia”, “the outfit”, “the family”, “our people”, and “the life” to refer to the organization. The mafia/cosa nostra is an organization without an official name, so all of these terms are essentially euphemisms. When Sicilians brought it to the US, “cosa nostra” was not yet in popular usage and it was generally referred to as the fratellanza (brotherhood) or unurata sucietà (honored society). These are things we can discuss more in later episodes, including sources for the use of these different terms over time.

Hoover made up the "la" because he liked three letter acronyms with regards to filing and reading and overall ascetic. He was an odd man.

Joey aiuppa would’ve been 21 at the time of the st valentines massacre most likely not there

@@bradmeeds1226 He dropped out of school when he was 12. He started at Circus Cafe very young just like Accardo did.

I also believed aiuppa was in on the st valentines massacre. He did something other than gambling to be given Cicero.

@@Italian_Gentleman_of_leisure He probably was a soldier in the wars of the Unione Siciliana when he was still a teenager in the late 20s. They moved into Cicero in 31. They killed a few people during the 30s when they took over all the Unions. He was definitely involved in the Tommy Malloy hit but there is no solid evidence about any of his murders and other violent crimes. He was an iron-fisted boss who inspired loyalty among the young guys that they brought in.

@@charlesandrews2360 Aiuppa came up under Campagna in Cicero. No affiliation with the circus cafe gang. His age similarity to Accardo played a role. Accardo came up under Capezio Aiuppa came up under Campagna

Indeed.

Tony or one of the guys might give a better answer than I can, and for more detail, they discussed this in some of their earlier episodes, though it’s spread around a bit so there isn’t one episode to point to. But a brief answer is that the Colosimo/Torrio/Capone organisation was an independent outfit and not part of the mafia. There was a separate mafia family in Chicago which went back to the late 1800s. This does not get much play - most info out there says the Chicago Family started with the Colosimo/Torrio/Capone organisation, but this is not true. In the late 20s Capone was in competition with the Chicago Family locally, and Masseria was in competition with them nationally, and was trying to muscle in on Chicago. So Capone and Masseria saw mutual benefit in working together against the Chicago Family and Joe Aiello (who was I think the underboss, but was very influential). So in 1928, Capone travelled to New York and was made into the Masseria Family, given the rank of captain, and the authority to make 10 guys under him. So at that point, the Capone organisation became a Masseria Family Chicago crew. Aiello and the Chicago Family sided with the Maranzano faction in the Castellammarese War, and Capone had him killed. But Capone then changed allegiance to Maranzano. When Masseria was killed and Maranzano became Boss of Bosses in early 1931, Capone (and presumably his guys) were transferred into the Chicago Family, and in short order Capone was promoted to Boss. Then, he signed off on Luciano’s hit on Maranzano, and when the Commission was formed in late 1931, Chicago got a seat, and Capone was the representative to take that seat. However, within a couple of months of the Commission being formed, Capone went to prison, and was then out of the picture. From there - I think - Nitti becomes boss, then Ricca (though someone will correct me if I am wrong). So, the Chicago Outfit kind of has a double history, formed from a merger of both the traditional Sicilian family, and the mainland led more multi-ethnic Capone organisation.

@@willmosse3684 thanks Will for adding some context it's really appreciated 👍

@@jamessteele394 No problem. Fascinating isn’t it? These guys have revolutionised my understanding of various things, deep Chicago history being one of the biggest.

@@willmosse3684 ye they're my favourite channel on this stuff by a mile. Chicago has always fascinated me and being able to get that level of breakdown on the outfit is fantastic.

Thanks for the kind words and for watching, guys. Will broke it down well. From what we know, the Colosimo/Torrio organization was apparently part of the Camorra (Southern Mainlander societies), though Colosimo himself already had very close ties to the Chicago mafia via Mike Merlo, who became boss of the Chicago Family in the 1920s after Tony D’Andrea died (Merlo and Colosimo had longstanding business and personal ties and were based in the same Near Southside neighborhood). As in other cities in the US, during the 1910s and ‘20s, the Camorra declined and was absorbed by the mafia/LCN. Capone was of course from Brooklyn and was very possibly already an associate of Frankie Yale when he arrived in Chicago. That Capone’s ties to the Masseria Family ran deeper than just common interests is indicated by Nick Gentile, who claimed that Capone had been large sums of money as tribute to Masseria. Around 1928, Gentile claimed that Chicago boss Tony Lombardo found out about this arrangement and instructed Capone to go to NYC and tell Masseria that he would no longer pay him (I strongly suspect that Lombardo wanted to make Capone but realized that he couldn’t, as Capone was a formally affiliated associate of the Masseria Family). Capone reportedly did so, but Masseria countered by instead inducting Capone into his Family and appointing him to capodecina, with the power to make members into his own crew in Chicago - Gentile tells us that in return, Capone was expected to murder both Lombardo and Joe Aiello (at the time, the boss and underboss of Chicago). Lombardo, as the boss of a major Family, was very likely an important lynchpin for then capo dei capi Totò D’Aquila’s national power. And, Lombardo and D’Aquila were then both murdered in late 1928, paving the way for Masseria to take over as CdC. It’s clear that the eventual plan was for Capone to become boss of Chicago as a Masseria loyalist (and Masseria was clearly angling to do the same thing in Cleveland and in Detroit with Cesare LaMare), but due to political issues and the subsequent Castellammarese War, this didn’t happen formally until Capone and Luciano eliminated Masseria and recognized Maranzano as CdC in 1931. Torrio was pretty clearly formally affiliated with the Masseria/Genovese Family as at least an associate. We have no evidence claiming that he was ever made, though it would not at all shock me if such evidence eventually turns up.

Yes, agreed. And to make things more interesting, Giancana was likely connected to Marcel Francisci, a French-Corsican politician who was strongly believed by LE to have been one of the main players behind the French Connection, as both men were involved with the Casino du Liban in Beirut.

@@Oneleven1 Ah, interesting. I was thinking I may have read about Lebanon being a heroin connect at that time too, but I couldn’t remember so I didn’t write it (and I was too lazy to google it). But involvement with French Corsican politics and crime in Lebanon at that time makes sense in terms of the general geopolitics too. Though France pulled out of Lebanon as the colonial power in 1948, it continued to be run by the Maronite Christian Lebanese community and their political parties as essentially French proxies, which carried on until the redistribution of power between the different Lebanese faith communities after the 1975-90 civil war. I lived in Beirut from 2014-2016, and to this day the Lebanese Maronites, who make up about 1/3 of the population, continue to identify almost more as French than as Middle Eastern or Arab. They speak French as a co-first language, alongside Lebanese Arabic, eat French foods, drink French wine, watch French cinema, etc. They travel to France a lot and spend time there. And France continues to play an active role politically and economically in affairs there (though less than before 1990). So it stands to reason that French criminal activities in that time period, especially those involved in sourcing product from the Middle East region, would plug in through Lebanon.

Thanks for listening. A future episode with our buddy Mark returning will discuss what we know about Chicago from the Carlisi-era forward, based on the sources that we have available.

He was supposed to be on the shelf

@@ChicagoMobTrials this is what the evidence points to, I think, though how and why he got shelved remains a question.

Lombardo complained that he was shelved and his guys were taken away from him

@@anthonyrobbins9778 yes that’s true. That’s how it goes I’m that life

None whatsoever, he was a nobody

Valachi used that term in his testimony. Some speculation is that "Buster" is Valachi, and he was protecting himself from incrimination.

They were talking about 1966-76, not after that

Not sure where Wemette got that from. FWIW, when I spoke to him years ago and asked him what he knew about Eboli, he told me that while he knew the name, he knew very little about him as he primarily knew guys in the city rather than out in the suburbs. I have addresses for Eboli in Melrose Park, Maywood, Hinsdale, and River Grove, but haven’t seen either him or his relatives with an address in Bensenville. That the house in question was owned by a relative of Lee Magnafichi seems much more likely to me, as Magnafichi himself lived in Bensenville and had other relatives living there. Given that Nick Calabrese said that Eboli took part himself in the Spilotro murders, it would also make more sense to not use a house that could be directly connected to one of the killers.

@@Oneleven1wherever you got the info on Lee owning the house was good info. I heard the same and from a very credible source.

Yep. By around 1976, it is very clear that Aiuppa was official boss while Cerone was UB. Fratianno discussed holding a meeting with Chicago sometime in ‘76, related to Sidney Korshak, and at that time noted that Aiuppa was boss. Attending with Aiuppa were Cerone, Accardo, and Joey Lombardo.

@@Oneleven1 By 1976, wasn't the Commission also down to six families? Fratianno claimed that Aiuppa told him "don't forget I have a Commission seat." Before he was whacked, Roselli claimed that the rest of the families besides Chicago and the Five Families were taken down in the early 70's and the Commission was just those six. In 1981, there's an interview with Fratianno where he claims that the "6 Major families, 1 in Chicago and 5 in New York loosely govern the rest". Then we have Lonardo's testimony in 1988 where he claims there's essentially "two Commissions" with Chicago settling disputes and representing all the western families and the Genovese representing the east coast families.

Right. According to The Last Mafioso, Louie Dragna was the acting boss and Fratianno the acting underboss. Fratianno was allegedly claiming he was the acting boss. For what it's worth, Sammy Gravano claimed Fratianno was calling himself the "boss of California." Don't know if Gravano's story is accurate, but if true Fratianno's misrepresentation was even worse.

@@EM-ve9bh Very interesting. Do you know where that claim by Roselli that by the early 70s the rest of the families outside Chicago and NY had been removed from the Commission is recorded? I would love to have a look at that. Thanks 🙏

@@willmosse3684 The Last Mafioso by Ovid Demaris. Roselli and Fratianno were discussing if Aiuppa would have had to go to the Commission to whack Giancana, since he was a former Boss. Roselli felt like Chicago being the only family outside of NYC on the Commission gave them too much power.

According to various sources, including Frank Cullotta, Spilotro was under Lombardo then he apparently reported to Ferriola.

1983 Lombardo and auippa was in jail correct? Wasn’t getting along with ferriola at the time

@@bradmeeds1226Aiuppa was not in prison. Feriola allegedly had some issues with Spilotro.

I read that Aiuppa was Spilotros Bishop, so as long as he was alive (Aiuppa) Spilotro was t gonna get touched. Ferriola supposedly hated spilotro and one of his first orders when he became boss (Ferriola) was to get rid of Spilotro.

@@johndesalvo7738 Frank Cullotta asserted that Ferriola was the Outfit boss, but it was confirmed by others that he never was. After Aiuppa the position went to Black Sam Carlisi. Per Frank Calabrese Sr, Aiuppa called a meeting before he went to prison and gave the order.

I don’t recall seeing anything in Elaine Smith’s book on Eto where he claims that Solano was made in the 1950s, but rather an excerpt from an interview with the FBI where Eto estimated that he had known Solano since the 1950s (if I missed something, let me know). I also don’t recall seeing anything in Eto’s FBI file, including after Eto was shot and flipped, where he mentioned anything about how long Solano was made. While the FBI was well aware of Solano as a labor leader and Prio’s driver and bodyguard in the 1960s, they didn’t have him as a member in their 1968 list (which was an inflafed estimate itself), so apparently they had no sources designating Solano as made at that time. In 1969, a CI gave the FBI some info that would seem to suggest that Solano was proposed for membership at that time, though the wording is vague and the CI’s identity is unknown. In 1973, the FBI had Solano listed as a member with several sources identifying him. Regarding Chicago and NYC closing the books - we know that other Families outside of NYC did not have to adhere to that, and have no evidence that Chicago was expected to. Guys like Lombardo and Spilotro were 100% confirmed by members sources as made prior to 1976, and Spilotro was of course only 19 in ‘57, so it is pretty clear that Chicago was indeed making new members during the period when NYC closed their books. Now, it is interesting that Chicago-Tampa associate Richard Victor “Popeye” Arrigo, who was a CI, reported to the Feds in 1976 that he had been told by Joey DiVarco that he had “sponsored” Arrigo to be “made” in a “ceremony” presided over by Accardo. Arrigo also noted that DiVarco stated that Chicago’s “books” had been close for “many years” but that an “exception” was being made for him. Now, this was after NYC had opened their books earlier that year, and it also isn’t clear that “many years” meant going all the way back to ‘57 necessarily. There is a lot that we still don’t know about the Chicago Family, but it is clear that they were very selective in inducting new members and were a rather small Family in terms of actual members, so they may have just been inducting guys over the years on an individual basis to replace members lost to attrition.

I am not that knowledgeable, but I believe spilotro was made for the m and m murders in 1963 I may be wrong though

@@gregorymanson1015 I mean, it’s a very real possibility and may be the best guess that we have. We know that Spilotro was made before NYC opened the books in 1976, but I have yet to see any member source that identified exactly when Spilotro was made.

I believe Rocky want made that early. He was a big dope pusher and was on the fringes until he cleared that up, Than was made.

@@Italian_Gentleman_of_leisure Rocky Infelise was made in the same October 1983 ceremony as the Calabrese brothers, per Nick Calabrese’s testimony. The FBI mistakenly thought Infelise was already made back in the 60s, again underscoring how off base assumptions about the mafia can be without solid member sources.

Hey T Dizzle, FWIW, Nicoletti's family (daughter, son-in-law & grandson) in Melrose Park always suspected a local business owner trying to make his bones, and who was beefing with Nicoletti at the time, as the shooter. The false rumor was he was going to roll at a Select House Committee on Assassinations looking into JFK.

​@@Primo109 very interesting, I didn't know that. Do u know what particular business owner they suspect? Or even what kind of business he owns?

@@tdizzle7812 Carl Morreale

@@tdizzle7812 Of course, but all I can divulge is the name of the business just in case the guy has family still living -- "Plantland" -- go figure. FYI, The name was not Carl Morreale.

@@Primo109 very interesting primo..I've got to say I've seen some of your posts and u def seem to know your stuff! Thanks for info

Working on it. We have a local Buffalo expert whom we'd like to get on. Same for a local Rochester expert.

@@themobarcheologistshey where are you guys??? This is a great channel and a lot of people have been waiting for new videos No pressure though lol

Thanks for watching. Regarding Nicoletti it's hard to say. Desperate times often lead to desperate measures. Also, we have to be careful with information provided by associates since they have access to limited inside information, unless they happen to be high-level associates. "The blazers" may have been a name created by the CI to describe the group. So whatever they say, it has to be carefully weighed and taken with a grain of salt.

@@Frodojack I read a report that Aiuppa thought Nicoletti might be or was going to start talking to the Feds.; that's why he got clipped. He apparently had been turning down some hits which would raise my suspicion level. Back of his head in his own car means he knew the guys, possibly Aleman.

@@scottisitoro3953 In 1986 prosecutors filed documents to keep Aiuppa locked up, including an affidavit from the FBI saying that Aiuppa approved the slaying of Nicoletti as a suspected informant. I'm not sure turning down hits would be an issue since it's not uncommon for soldiers to turn them down for good reason. If I recall correctly, it was discovered that a secretary working in the Chicago FBI office was the girlfriend of a made member or associate and was leaking information. Aleman was one of the men suspected of killing Nicoletti (at least according to Bill Roemer), but then again he was suspected of a lot of murders, including some he probably had nothing to do with.

it happened way back in the 80s, his memory faded a bit

It's been awhile since I read the book, but he also wasn't sure if he was going to be the one that was killed

@@addicted2baseballrgd21that was in LaPietras basement when he was told he was going to get made

It happened at Lee Magnafichi’s brother in laws house, in Bensenville

Yes, Jerry “Dinger” Carusiello and Tony Borsellino both got whacked in the fallout from what LE called “BURGMURS”. Lefty Rosenthal told the FBI that Carusiello was responsible for setting up the actual murders. IIRC, LE then pulled his phone records and found multiple calls between Dinger and the victims. Resulting LE pressure then led the outfit to smell a rat and they wound up whacking out Dinger out of concern that he was squealing. So Rosenthal’s informing may have led to Carusiello’s murder. Per the Calabreses, Petrocelli was feeding lies about Tony Borse both stealing money and informing and this got Borse clipped. Frankie C tried to save Borse by putting him on record as an associate under LaPietra, but it was too late as the admin had already put out the order to knock him down.

The reports I'm aware of only mention Lake County, Indiana, where Gary is located. For several decades it appears to have been a separate crew until it went under Chicago Heights.

Thanks them are you a girl or boy?

true. I believe Rocky slipped the g ans was at the house

Rocky was absolutely there. He was Ferriolas personal UB

Harry Aleman was almost certainly never made and I have certainly never seen anything that would in the least make me even entertain that he was. He was in a “crew” of associates that answered to Ferriola, only a couple of whom (Scarpelli, Inendino) wound up only later being made. If he had been made, this would’ve been a pretty notable breaking of the rules and presumably well-known to both Nick C and Frank Sr and both men (on the witness stand and on the prison tapes recorded by Frankie Jr) made it clear that protocol in Chicago as late as the ‘80s was that one had to be Italian on both sides. A few guys slipped through over the years who were half on their mothers’s side (and the same happened in NYC of course), but at least from the 60s through the 80s informants concur that one had to be full Ital. Frank Sr was upset that Jimmy “Poker” DiForti was made despite his mother allegedly not being Italian, while Ronnie Jarrett could not be made (Ronnie was raised by his mother’s Sicilian family but his dad was Irish), so Frank was irate that the rules were apparently bent for one of Monteleone’s guys but not one of his. When I investigated DiForti’s ancestry, however, the woman who was recorded as his mother didn’t marry his dad until several years after his birth, so it’s not clear to me whether she was in fact his mother. The prime example of a half-Ital guy who got made was Jimmy Marcello. But, Jimmy’s dad Sam Marcello divorced his Irish mother when he was a young kid, and remarried Margaret Urbinati, who was Mickey Marcello’s mom (she was a sister of outfit-connected heroin dealer Carlo Urbinati). On her obituary she was given as Jimmy’s mother, rather than stepmother, so it may genuinely not have been public knowledge that he was only half Ital. Easier for guys to slip by and the rules to be bent when they had an Italian surname at least, of course. With Harry Aleman, his family was from Taylor St and everyone know that his dad was Mexican. His father, Louis Aleman, used to run around with Italian guys from the Taylor Patch like the Carioscias, and was probably involved in heroin trafficking.

@@Oneleven1 Thanks Tony. A lot of detail there. Makes sense to me. After I saw the episode where they said it I googled it a bit and didn’t find anything, so I thought it was probably off, so great to have you fill out the detail on that. I am learning how much Chicago seemed to maintain its own rules independently of the NYC “commission”. I was reading yesterday where Angelo Lonardo of Cleveland said that there were two Commission, one in NYC for the East, and one in Chicago for the West. So he has Chicago as its own Commission (I guess this would only be later in the century, but still). Amazing. Do you think there was generally alignment of rules and protocols between these? Or was there a lot of variance (for example on the half Italian issue)? Cheers mate

@@willmosse3684 my guess has been that Lonardo’s reference to Chicago being its own “Commission” was more figurative than literal, in that they represented a number of Families as Avvocato, and perhaps worked to resolve issues with those Families “in house” when possible, except in cases where perhaps NYC or Families represented by NYC were involved. Chicago was a constituent member of the Commission on par with the NYC Families, of whom Chicago was a peer organization, and I have never seen anything that leads me to believe there were ever any significant differences in rules or protocol, with the possible exception of the full Italian rule. In general, and at least in theory of course, each Family had semi-autonomous license to run their own affairs as they saw fit, and the rules and protocol of the mafia are pretty simple and flexible. The Commission served more as a deliberative body to mediate political issues within and between Families than a system to dictate prescriptive rules to micromanage Families. Interesting to note that there was at least some evidence to suggest that Families had some variability in terms of criteria for membership, as a CI in the ‘60s told the FBI that one had to be Sicilian specifically for membership in the St Louis “outfit”. STL was probably represented for much of its history by Chicago, which of course had many Mainland Italian members, but it’s not like Chicago had any interest or reason to mold highly Sicilian Families like Milwaukee, Madison, Rockford, STL, or KC in its own image (which reflected, like NYC, the large Italian community in Chicago where Sicilians lived and interacted with large numbers of other Italians). And of course STL would recognize any made member of non-Sicilian ancestry from another Family as amico nostro still, just that they may have preferred to keep their membership Sicilian (again, this local “corporate culture” reflected the local community, as my understanding is that in STL most of the non-Sicilian Italians were northerners, who in general had fewer cultural commonalities with Sicilians and were less amenable to assimilate and adopt the tradition of the mafia as compared to Mainland Southerners).

Yeah, it makes sense to me that the distinction between Lonardo’s Chicago Commission and NY Commission was more of an operational distinction than an organisational one, to use you guys’ framework, even though he said it like it was a formal structural thing. Essentially, Chicago would just deal with issues with families under its umbrella itself, unless an issue involved relations with a family that reported into NYC. In terms of families having sovereignty to determine membership rules themselves, whatever the national rule, that makes sense in one direction, but not in the other I guess. As in, a family can be more strict than the national policy, but not more lax. If a family wants to say only guys over 6’3 tall with big noses can get made, they can. But what they can’t do is say “we’re gonna start making Polish women”. Thanks Tony - btw, it’s me talking to you on the Black Hand Forum about Tourna, Torne, Torneo, etc. 👍

Jimmy Marcello was only half Italian and he was a boss or at least a captain at one point. That actually was part of his defense during family secrets, that he couldn't possibly be in the mob because he was half Irish 😅

The family secrets trial completely finished off the outfit. That's why there will never be another trial like it.

@@joedimaggio3687 100%

@@joedimaggio3687lol what’re you talking about? No it didn’t. How do you figure? All of did was get rid of some old guys who were on their way downhill anyways, and it shed some light onto the structure & making ceremonies

​@marcbasil ok, then who are the current guys, and what rackets are they are they involved with?

@marcbasil name the current Outfit administration and its captains.

…? This is very easy information for you to find out, bud. Do you watch these shows?

He was cerones driver for many years

@@tdizzle7812 no he wasn’t. Cerone went away in the mid 80s. Magnafichi didn’t end up on the scene til early 80s. After 1983 when the first hints of straw man came down Cerone went back to cautious and Messino was with him every second. If you see a news clip of cerone from the KC trial you’ll see Messino right next to him. They even got special permission by the government to be around each other because they were both felons. The government granted them permission. Magnafichi worked for Messino after that. Mags couldn’t even keep his envelopes coming in. So he borrowed from different people til the well ran dry otherwise he’d prob be a boss by now but he was only concerned about being labeled a gangster. Not making money.

For a fact magnafici was driving for cerone as early as 19 years old, in the late 1970s

Magnafici has told joe fosco many many stories about his time with cerone

@@tdizzle7812 he was born in the early 60s. It’s not hard to believe he made up outfit stories. I grew up around Michael he’s a great guy that fell on hard times. He drove Jack when they’d go golfing but I doubt Cerone is conducting outfit stuff in front of Mags. Messinos grandson drove Difronzo for years and he’s a friend of mine. I don’t think for 1 second he was exposed to outfit stuff. At least he doesn’t discuss it

Thanks for your input, Bill. I’m in no position to say one way or the other myself, just that Fosco has stated for years that he was very close to Willie in the later years of his life. BTW, did you work at II Jack’s? I used to live around the corner from there back then, but was a kid.

@@Oneleven1 I did shortly then messino brought me to a bar he owned in Melrose park. That’s where I saw fosco mostly. After Willie died Fosco hung with Jack Jr Cerone and Clara Cerone.

I've never heard of a disciplined criminal. That's why they become criminals because they have no discipline.

@@joedimaggio3687???

Bad health

@Bill Mason i see him running errands he lives in my town, I grew up around his boys. He looked fine to me just a older guy, seems fairly active I see the guy quite a bit.

I think you meant to write “Louis Bombacino”?

@@Oneleven1 Yes. Corrected.

He'll come up in a future episode.

resting in the can trying to get a passionate release

It was reported in 1974 by Frank Bompensiero, who had just met with Spilotro, that Spilotro was a soldier who answered to Joey Lombardo as his captain. This was, of course, both after Alderisio died and Spilotro had relocated to Vegas. It’s possible that after Lombardo was imprisoned Spilotro may have reported as a soldier direct to the admin. But this is speculative and I’m not aware of any member sources that specified Spilotro’s assignment in the years before he was clipped. I’m not aware that Chicago or any other LCN Family had ever had a formal position called “head of enforcement”, though certain members might be tasked by the admin to make sure that hits were carried out. In the 1980s, Chicago FBI office SAC Ed Hegarty testified to Congress and gave the following as the positions within the Chicago Family or “outfit”: Rappresentandu/boss, Sottucapu/underboss, Cunsigliere, Capudecina, Soldatu (Hegarty specifically reported these positions in Sicilian dialect). 20 years later in the Family Secrets indictments and Nick Calabrese’s testimony, the same positions and no others were reported.

@@Oneleven1 Didn't Nick Calabrese testify that the Chicago Family had a Consigliere as well? Because wasn't Lombardo elevated to this position once Accardo passed, who was then followed by Marco D'Amico?

@@EM-ve9bh I have never seen where Nick testified about the Consigliere, but it was reported as a position in Chicago’s admin in the 2005 FS indictments by the Feds. It’s very much a possibility that Nick talked about things in his 302 that didn’t come up in his testimony. As noted above and in our show, the Feds had Chicago as having a Consigliere as far back as the 1960s, when they first began receiving inside info about the organization from informants. As we’ve discussed, the role of the Consigliere in Chicago at least up until the 70s has to be contextualized by the fact that the Family had a Consiglio, or ruling council, so the responsibilities of the Consigliere (arbitrating member disputes, approving hits, advising the boss on policy, serving as a counter balance to the unchecked authority of the boss) were shared by a group of men. Accardo and Ricca seem to have served as Chairmen of the Consiglio, which is equivalent to the official Consigliere for Families that have that as a single position. Regarding Lombardo and D’Amico, those claims remain speculative and far from proven. Without a clear member source I’m not inclined to take claims like those as anything like fact. Hopefully documentation will be made available in the future to help clear these things up, or another made member will flip and shed light on what was actually happening. A later episode with our buddy Mark will discuss in detail what we do know based on available sources about Chicago from the Carlisi era forward.

@@Oneleven1 Right, this all makes sense. It's just that when Roselli and Fratianno discuss the different families, they never make a note that Chicago is any different than any other family, or that any other family has some different hierarchy. We know that the LA and Milwaukee families had a Boss, Under Boss, and Consigliere administration. It would be so odd if Chicago, who represented those families on the Commission, was radically different. NOLA was a family I was unsure about, but we have info from a Colombo informant that at one point all that they HAD was a Boss, Under Boss, Consigliere and two soldiers lol. Detroit and Tampa are other families I've wondered about, but again neither Roselli or Fratianno ever claimed or said anything about them being different. While we really don't have a ton of high ranking informants from the midwest/west coast families, reading those books definitely makes it seem like every single family in the US had the exact same structure. New York, Chicago, LA, or otherwise.

Im my grandma's caretaker. He first cousin was jasper campise. Was he really made and under the tuteledge of Milwaukee Phil? With major Kansas City ties?

Correct. 1969 & then briefly in 1981

Yes, J Cosenza does great work and we’re glad to see that he has watched and commented on our Chicago episodes.

Agreed, I love hearing about the outfit. There's still so much that we don't know because the outfit was very very smart, low key and very powerful.

Yes he did!

They were nowhere near as big. At their a absolute peak, they had around 80 made guys. The Genovese alone had like 300 buttons

When Scarpelli flipped he told the FBI that he thought Ferriola could’ve been the UB bit wasn’t sure. He also noted that Ferriola’s health was very bad by that point and he basically was retired anyway. It’s also possible that no one was immediately appointed official UB when Cerone went away. Admin positions in the mafia are often not filled for years, so we can’t assume that someone was necessarily put in that spot immediately.

According to some sources Carlisi was picked by Aiuppa to succeed him and Cerone selected John DiFronzo. Carlisi allegedly ran Aiuppa's old crew and DiFronzo was the capo of Cerone's old crew in Elmwood Park.

Word on the street was johnny d was selected as cerones replacement

@@tdizzle7812 Fo shizzle, tdizzle

I like chicago outfit we have to support our home team

No he was not. Personal murderer, yeah probably…but Battaglia, Ferraro, & likely Alderisio were his guys, from when he was a kid. And Lenny Caifano before them

nicolletti battaglia were his personel underbosses accardo wanted cerone to be his underbossbut sam hated cerone said no@@marcbasil

There are a number of sources for the different hits Aiuppa was allegedly responsible for, but most of the sources are probably confidential informants. Sources include Nick Calabrese, Jimmy Fratianno, Ken Eto, and Frank Cullotta. There's informants who are less well known who testified and others whose names are kept under wrap.

He was the boss….? Lol

@@marcbasil very astute Marc! Lets try this one more time: who was there or who did Aiuppa tell to hit the Spilotros?

The evidence indicates that Campise was a soldier under Vince Solano. According to Ken Eto, he was one of the hitmen along with John Gattuso.

@@Frodojackthe evidence is literally the Rush St brass discussing his making ceremony lmao.

Campise was straightened out, of course. Highly respected hitter & loan shark Not sure what his relationship to a subservient, tiny family a la KC would have to do with him getting hit

Thanks for watching. Insider sources suggest that Ricca was the chairman of the Consiglio, possibly going back to Capone's imprisonment. Accardo probably sat on the Consiglio since he became the boss in 1947. If he became the acting boss in 1943, then even earlier. So while Ricca was alive he had the senior position on the Consiglio and Accardo was probably the next senior person. When Ricca died in 1972 (or a little earlier due to his senility), Accardo probably became the chairman.

@@Frodojack ricca spent some time in prison, so I’m sure that’s when TA takes over. Not to mention TA never spent any time in jail so that shows who had the real power. If the Kennedy play goes right for Sam, and they get rid of Castro then I really believe not even TA would have been the boss anymore

​@@chrisburns143The Mob was a scapegoat for the CIA. Giancana was the Boss. The Outfit was run by committee, like most Midwest families.

@@addicted2baseballrgd21 the boss don’t answer to anyone. He only gives orders, but I’ll give Sam his respect he came close to running the whole show. TA never spend any real time I’m jail, and never went to prison. Never goes to prison, died of natural causes, and family still had money. TA got lots of respect for taking care of his former boss, and then his wife and children when AL died.

@@chrisburns143that doesn’t show anything lol. Ricca was the main power, and then Mooney, and then accardos guys (Aiuppa & Cerone) took over. Stop repeating things you read in Bill Roemer books

In 1964, Teddy DeRose told the Feds that membership in the Chicago “Family” was “always accompanied by a ceremony”. In 1976, Vic Arrigo told the Feds that he had been sponsored to be “made” by Joey DiVarco, who told Arrigo that he was to be “made” in a “ceremony” officiated by Accardo (who we know was the acting boss until around ‘76). In ‘83, the Calabrese bros were made in a ceremony officiated by Aiuppa; Carlisi was present as a captain. Carlisi became boss 1986-‘87, so I don’t know why you’d think Carlisi “started the ceremony”.

The formal ceremony with the burning holy card and all that was started in the late 70s or early 80s at the behest of carlisi who was high ranking at that time. There is plenty of information out there. May I suggest going to the gangsterbb message board and read old posts by a guy named “Chicago” He lays all this out and is very obviously in the know. Paul whitcomb who was a clerk during the carlisi trial and had plenty of information from Patrick says the same thing. Also, again Fred Pascente was a neighborhood guy and say the same thing, cullotta was well connected and said there was no ceremony, he left Chicago before the ceremony started. Chuck Giancana was the most well connected author of all and said there was no ceremony Unless you count Giancana”s ceremony when Accardo made him boss, it was a dinner at a restaurant with a lot of guys. That could be considered “ceremony” but not the burning of the card and finger pricking

@@SayerofThings I am well aware of the claims made by “Chicago” on GBB. Let’s say that I much less confident in his bonafides than you are, to say the least. Again, Cullotta and Pascente were not made guys and were not necessarily going to be privy to info that was reserved for made members only. Nick Calabrese testified that when he was made in 1983, he did not know what the ceremony entailed before he himself underwent it. And by that point, he had been “on record” as an associate under Angelo LaPietra for 14 years. He also grew up in the Grand Ave neighborhood, same as Cullotta and Pascente. This strongly suggests that the making ceremony was not discussed among even formally affiliated associates. Chicago was not like NYC and members do not seem to have discussed info about the formal mafia organization with non-members. I don’t know that Chicago necessarily always used the full ceremony at every point in its history (and other Families like the Bonannos, DeCavalcantes, Buffalo, Pittsburg, and Milwaukee did not always use it either), but I have yet to see any evidence (by which I mean an explicit statement from a made member or well-placed associate, not claims made by guys on message boards who are basically trolls) that specifically states that it was only used from the late 70s on or that Carlisi was instrumental in this. That Chicago used a formal ceremony for inducting members, as I’ve already noted above, was documented in Chicago years before the late 70s, by a CI who went back to the days of Capone and Tony Lombardo. The traditional making ceremony, either its use or non-use, in Chicago or any other LCN Family, was not a topic of testimony in either the Carlisi crew case or for Lenny Patrick. So, why would being a clerk during these trials gone one any privileged insight into this question?

@@Oneleven1I agree with you. I worked at Willie Messinos bar in the late 90s and he told me and his grandson about his induction but he didn’t label it a ceremony. He simply told us about being brought in. He told us the place and year and who else was there and it definitely sounded like a ceremony. Only thing I’ll share is he said it was in the 1940s

​@@SayerofThingsthats' because the Chicago outfit was not real Cosa Nostra

300-400 inducted members? Lol nice fantasy buddy

There’s no evidence that Chicago ever had the number of members (meaning actual made guys, not associates) as even the Colombos, and certainly nothing close to the range of 300-400. Yes, people online say that, but there are no quality sources that support anything like that. In the 1960s, Genovese NJ captain Gyp DeCarlo (who came up under Ruggiero Boiardo, who lived in Chicago when he was young and later had close ties to Chicago members like Accardo) was caught on wiretap discussing Chicago and claiming that they only had around 50 members (to be clear, he meant this as a compliment and wished his own Family had a membership like that, so as to not have to share a cut of their operations with too many members). Speaking of the Colombos, in 1965, Greg Scarpa reported a Colombo Family meeting to the FBI. He specifically stated that Joe Colombo discussed the affairs of the Chicago Family at this meeting and stated that Chicago’s membership was, again, about 50 members. Again, Scarpa reported that Colombo expressed that Chicago’s size was desirable and that the Colombo Family should aim to shrink itself to the same range and hold off on inducting new members. Colombo also explained that each member in Chicago had associates who were earners for the Family, and also had prolific killers at its command who were not made. While in the 1960s and 70s, the FBI compiled lists of suspected Chicago members that counted over 100, the methodology used at that time was flawed, as they used a number of CIs who were not themselves members (for example, Frank Calabrese was ID’d by 3 sources in 1973 as a member but we found out decades later that he wasn’t actually made until 1983), and thus those figures are clearly inflated and include many non-members. The FBI revised their methods for identifying LCN members in the 1980s to make the identifications more rigorous and, lo and behold, at that time they identified Chicago as having about 50 members. Given that Chicago probably always had a few “sleepers” (including members who were politicians and union leaders and otherwise not known publicly as criminals), they may have had a couple more than 50, perhaps even as much as 70, but again, there is no evidence that they have ever had more than 100 members.

@@Oneleven1 I’m going off their golden years in the 50’s and 60’s n yes they were about the same size as the Colombos. Under Capone it was even bigger. But it trailed off with time especially getting into the 70’s. After Capone was locked up their numbers dwindled then when Ricca and Accardo took over it got bigger. Now they’re way smaller. Have been since the 80’s/90’s. But before that yea around 100 members.

@@pab1381 But as I just noted, Joe Colombo, who sat on the Commission with Chicago, told his own Family in the 1960s that Chicago had only around 50 members, and contrasted this to the Colombo Family which had many more, but was still the smallest Family in NYC. Also, if you have an actual inside source that specifies the number of LCN members that Chicago had during the 1950s, let alone during the Capone era, please let us know as you would obviously be sitting on a goldmine.

Chicago had always had a low amount of made guys with tons of associates. If you were a made guy in Chicago you were essentially a high ranking member of a large group of guys wanting to rise up and get that envelope.

I grew up with nick g who is the nephew so I'd imagine that's his father?? If his father is anything like his son he's as dumb as a box of rocks talking to this guy is punishment.

Just what was proven correct? As you're the first person I have ever come across that says that

@Steve Smith you must not have came across anyone that knows Nick Giancana then obviously. I've never met someone that doesn't say he's as dumb as dirt smh I went to highschool with him. If you don't believe me go to Basecamp in four lakes in lisle. Ull run into that idiot there all by himself or with this known escort that's absolutely hideous the guys in his 40s with the mind of a teenager.

@@SteveSmith-fp9gn jeez, to start honest researcher will say Marilyn Monroe was killed, jfk assassination definitely has mob presence, opening the drug pipeline to South America with gun running. We know Ruby went to Cuba to bail out trafficante, Guatemala “communists”. Nixon saying Ruby worked for him. We know the attorney general Clark was 100% given a Supreme Court seat after letting Paul Ricca and others out of jail early. Just so many revelations that were proven true from that book. The biggest takeaway from that book to me was chuck telling Mooney about communism and Mooney says “watching your RCA again” Summed it up perfectly

@@SteveSmith-fp9gn also, the cia using mob for contract murder inside the US. Howard hughes setting up “S force” assassination group with Cuban exiles and mob guys. This shit it on the record if you can sift through the propaganda and lies

Frank Cullotta claimed that Nicoletti had told him that he was in trouble for having ordered the hit on longtime Chicago member Ned Bakes (despite the name, he was Sicilian. The family’s surname was originally Sbacchi and his dad had been connected back in the 1910s to Diamond Joe Esposito). Ordering an unsanctioned hit on a member would be cause for execution, though it’s unclear if Cullotta’s account was accurate. Bakes was murdered in late 1975 and Nicoletti wasn’t killed until almost two years later in 1977. There are credible claims that Nicoletti was an informant (the FBI to this day still refuses to release Nicoletti’s file to the public, which would support that), so that may well have been what got him clipped. Several years before he was killed, CIs were reporting that Nicoletti was basically frozen out of rackets and was scrambling around trying to secure sources of income. There was probably a series of issues, that we don’t fully understand yet, that served as a chain of events that led to him getting whacked (most murders of mafia members aren’t due to just one thing, but rather the accrual of several issues with something serving as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” immediately precipitating a hit).

@@Oneleven1 I’ve noticed, especially in the early years 30s through 60s many Chicago guys used Anglo last names. I’m not sure but maybe even Ralph pierce wasn’t his real name. Jack Mcgurn, bob duff, the English brothers, lots of Chicago heights guys. I can’t remember all of them. Tony Dark’s fbi files books on Mooney and JB, Ricca has many names that were changed if I remember correctly

@@SayerofThings Yes, though that wasn’t unique to Chicago (also, a lot of guys boxed when they were young and it was common back in the day for Italian boxers to use Irish pseudonyms: hence “Jack McGurn” and “Joey O’Brien”). Ralph Pierce was his real name, however; he was actually a WASP from rural Ohio who moved to Chicago as a kid. What’s funny also is that non-Italian associates also used Italian pseudonyms. For example, Joseph “Joe Arnold” Aranyos went by “Giuseppe Olivetti” and even Ken Eto used “Joseph Montana”.

How could he order a hit? He was never a top 3

@@jonathansack6827 Well, that’s the whole point (assuming here for the sake of argument that Cullotta’s account was accurate, which as I noted above, may not have been the case). From what we know, the murder of a member had to be ordered by the Consiglio (the Family’s ruling council). If Nicoletti had Bakes, a member, killed without the order and approval of the Consiglio, he would’ve committed a grave violation of protocol that would warrant his own murder. If this was what happened, presumably Nicoletti ordered some associates to clip Bakes, and those associates would not have been in the position to question an order like that from a made guy (matters like this are above their “pay grade”; they are expected to do what’s told and could easily get killed themselves if they start asking questions).